Posts Tagged ‘bend’

March Book Club Meeting

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

We’ll discuss Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price at the March 2nd Book Club meeting.

Video cheats for the book appear below. Here’s a link to reader reviews with those “most helpful” appearing at the top.

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The first video is an hour long discussion of the book at the Commonwealth Club…

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The video below is another hour long presentation of the ideas in the book at the DC Google Talks.

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Last but not least, Charlie Rose interviewed Chris Anderson about his “free” book…

. (more…)

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To Kindle, or Not To Kindle …

Monday, January 12th, 2009

One of the things I love about Bend is our public library.  It is a centerpiece of our community – friendly, modern, useful, and bustling with activity.  Which is why I was delighted to see that in these troubled economic times library use is up 10%.  It flies in the face of long-running predictions that libraries would suffer as more and more people turn to the internet, and is a notable contrast to the layoffs that hit the book publishing industry back in December on a day now referred to as “Black Wednesday“.  So it was a bit of a surprise to hear myself recommending to my friend Bryan that he stop using the library.

Bryan and I were chatting about how his daughter had become a voracious reader, something he was naturally excited about.  The problem was that in preparation for a trip his family was taking to Costa Rica for two weeks, he and his daughter had gone to the library and checked out a half dozen books to satisfy her reading appetite while they were away.   Schlepping these rather bulky, mostly hardback, tombs around while they were on vacation was no mean feat, but anything for daddy’s little girl, right?

She finished them in four days.

As a techno-geek, my response was immediate and obvious, “Get a Kindle!”  The Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-book reader, is about the same form factor as a normal book, but can hold 100′s (1000′s?) of digital e-books.  It seemed like a perfect solution to the problem – his daughter could read for months, if not years, with all the content these things can hold. (more…)

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Crossing the Chasm – Part 1: “Rebooting Central Oregon”

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

In 1942 Neal C. Gross and Bruce Ryan began work on a sociological model, now formally known as the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (figure 1), with the original purpose to track the purchase patterns of hybrid seed corn farmers. A few years later, in 1957, Joe M. Bohlen, George M. Beal, and Everett M. Rogers took this a step further and wrote a paper documenting their study around what is known as the Diffusion Process or Diffusion of Innovations.  Their paper outlined how farmers accepted new ideas or innovations into their community and was later formalized in Everett Rogers book which outlined the “theory of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures.” To further clarify this, their work documented what is known as the “Roger’s Bell Curve” along with their summary findings as shown in figures 1 and 2 below:

Crossing The Chasm v2

Figure 1

Diffusion of Innovation

Figure 2

Their study fundamentally outlined how farm people accepted new ideas and the break-down and the demographic mix that outlined how and by whom new ideas were accepted. Fast forward almost 50 years to 1991. Geoffrey Moore took this original theory and model of Diffusion and the Technology Life Cycle and put his own take on it in his book Crossing the Chasm. (more…)

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Bend’s French Connection

Monday, December 15th, 2008

The Le Web conference recently wrapped up their ’08 session (in Paris, fwiw).  The news coming out of it has been interesting on a number of fronts, but one piece has attracted a lot of attention:  Le Web founder and host, Loic Le Meur, and TechCrunch founder, Michael Arrington, have been on friendly terms up until recently, but they’ve started trading blows in a bit of a kerfuffle that started during the closing “Gilmore Gang” session.  It’s an Us. (or U.S.) vs. Them debate about how the different cultures in Silicon Valley and France/Europe affect entrepreneurship.  While watching the Gilmore Gang video, I was surprised to recognize the same insecurities in European tech entrepreneurs that I share with people here in Central Oregon – an acute awareness and sensitivity to the fact that, “we’re not Silicon Valley”.

It was a surprising epiphany, that Paris and Bend have this commonality, given how profoundly different the two cities are in pretty much all other aspects.  It gave me a bit of hope that the debate might turn up a nugget or two of insight into the nature of the issues we face.  Unfortunately the panel was populated entirely by Silicon Valley personalities, so insights were in short supply.  It didn’t help that some of the overinflated egos on stage were knocking back wine at a good clip.  It was entertaining (in the train-wreck-fashion that all Ugly Americans are), but not insightful.

Let me try to nurse at least a little wisdom from the discussion and do a quick rundown of the issues as I see them.  I doubt these will come as a surprise to any of you, but maybe some speculation as to how they might apply to the European startup community will turn up something useful … (more…)

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Posted in Internet, Startups | 2 Comments »

Post Bend Venture Conference Tweet-Up

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

That’s right folks, it’s already that time of year – Fall.

No, but seriously. It’s already time for another Bend Venture Conference.

This, of course, means that we can expect there to be a few days of tech nerds, VCs and business owners eager to win the big prize wandering downtown Bend.

So let’s take advantage. There will be a tweetup on Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Blacksmith Restaurant. (Location)

You can sign up if you plan to attend here.

Drinks will be available for purchase, of course. If anyone wants to stay for dinner they’re more than welcome.

See you there!

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Bend Tech Scene Blowing Up

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Despite the overwhelming drop-off in the economic stability of our nation, our little burg of Bend, Oregon has seen our tech industry grow exponentially this year. We’ve seen more companies appear, and many who have been here for some time explode in size. See below for a breakdown from Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO).

Altrec/GreatOutdoors.com, Redmond
Mike Morford, CEO
This fast growing company is a national e-tailer and distributor of recreational gear and equipment, similar to REI but with no retail component. Company just expanded its original office location into an adjacent building.
Growing from 40 to 60 employees.

Blue Reference, Bend
Paul and Josh van Eikeren (founders of IntelliChem in 1999, subsequently sold to Symyx in 2006 for $30M). Startup company is building a new software platform for Electronic Lab Notebooks which helps scientists, engineers and business professionals quickly analyze data.
7 employees, hiring for 6 additional.

Bend Research, Bend
Rod Ray
Specialize in the R&D of novel pharmaceutical delivery mechanisms.
169 employees.
Bend Research has created many other small, successful spinoffs.

G5 Search Marketing, Bend
Dan Hobin, CEO
Developer of integrated local search marketing for the internet and optimization services
Grown from 12 to 28 employees in the last year

GL Suite, Bend
Bill Moseley, CEO
Software developer for government licensing.
40 employees, recently added 1,700 square feet of office space.

Grace Bio-Labs, Bend
Full service design and manufacture of products for custom and OEM applications in cell analysis and the molecular pathology industry.
21 employees.

MEDISISS, Redmond
Third party re-processor of single-use medical devices for the health care industry, particularly the ambulatory surgery market.
47 employees.

InEnTec,LLC, Bend
Mike Rockett, CEO
Plasma-based waste processing and clean energy systems.
5 full-time employees in Bend with several more telecommuters; currently hiring project managers.

Medsoft, Bend
Dennis Kinion, CEO
Startup company develops software for hospitals and clinics to update and manage the professional certifications of their staff.

Microsemi, Bend (Power Products group located in Bend, was Advanced Power Technologies until acquired in 2006).
Semiconductor manufacturer specializing in system-engineered integrated circuits and high reliability discrete devices for aviation and military.
147 employees.

PV Powered, Bend
Greg Patterson, CEO
Manufacturer of grid-tied solar inverters
Employment at 43 (likely to increase back up to 60 with passage of solar tax credits).

Suterra, Bend
Steve Hartmeier, CEO
Diversified pest control company with an environmental focus that provides products and services to the commercial agriculture market.
58 employees – Moving to 10-acre parcel in Juniper Ridge.

Tri-Quint, Bend
Design and manufacture of high-performance modules and components for communications companies that create mobile handsets, RF network equipment, and defense & space systems.
22 employees.

Also, Silicon Forest, the tech blog arm of The Oregonian, picked up on the news. You can see it here.

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Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation (part 1) at this year’s Bend Venture Conference (BVC)

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Check out part 1 of Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation from this years Bend Venture Conference (BVC). Part 1 is roughly 32 minutes long. This is a great presentation for this years BVC so check this out and come back shortly for part 2 of Guy’s presentation. A big thanks to the folks at BVC for bringing Guy Kawasaki to town! Stay tuned for additional videos from this year’s BVC, including presentations by the lead companies at this year’s event.

To download a higher resolution version of this video, please select the following link: Guy Kawasaki Keynote Presentation at the 2007 Bend Venture Conference (BVC) – Part 1

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Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation (part 2) at this year’s Bend Venture Conference (BVC)

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Check out part 2 of Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation from this years Bend Venture Conference (BVC). Part 2 is roughly 34 minutes long. This is a great presentation for this years BVC so be sure to check this out. A big thanks to the folks at BVC for bringing Guy Kawasaki to town! Stay tuned for additional videos from this year’s BVC, including presentations by the lead companies at this year’s event.

To download a higher resolution version of this video, please select the following link: Guy Kawasaki Keynote Presentation at the 2007 Bend Venture Conference (BVC) – Part 2

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